What They Don’t Tell You About the Mortgage Business and Being a Loan Officer

Welcome back to Mortgage Daddies! Today, we are gonna be talking about some of the pros and cons about getting into the mortgage business, and what you can kind of expect if you’re thinking about getting into the business. Yeah, we have a lot of people asking us all the time, like, “What are the pros, what are the cons of getting into the mortgage business? “Obviously there’s, in our opinion, there’s more pros than cons, but, uh, depending upon your personality and your drive, I think that’s a, that’s a bigbig question mark that you have to ask yourself before you’re making that career change. Yeah, absolutely. I always like to try to give people as much info when they talk to me, ’cause you get people all the time who call you, and they seethey see the fancy cars or they see the nice clothes that some of the loan officers wear, and, you know, it’s not everybody that makes that money. Yeah. And it takes a while to get to that point. So I really try to, you know, explain probably a lot of the things we’re gonna go over today about what real life looks like as a loan officer, and how long it can take you to kind of get to that point where you’re not living in your mother’s basement. I’m Vernon. I run the top mortgage brokerage in Massachusetts with over 20 years of experience. I’m Craig. I’ve done $100 million consistently since my second full year in the business and I’m Massachusetts’ top mortgage broker. We’re the Mortgage Daddies, with real advice, real stories, and real results. Let’s get going. I mean, it’s the 80/20 rule, right? We always talk about the 80/20 rule. 80% of the people, you know, don’t do much, and then 20% do 80% of, you know, all the volume, all the work that’s, uh, that’s out there. Um, I had Wendy pull some stats. Mm. So I wanna ask you a couple questions, and then we’re gonna dive in on, on some of this. What do you think the average age of a loan officer is in the United States today? And this is gonna be shocking compared to where it was just 3 or 4 years ago post-COVID. Yeah. From everything I always heard, even when I got into the business, it was definitely, you know, probably fif- in the 50s. The average loan officer wasbe in the mid to late-50s. But I know that’s not true, ’cause I saw your card. Yeah. So I mean, listen. I was absolutely shocked when they pulled these, uh, from Google and ChatGPT. I had them check both, ’cause IThe facts didn’t, didn’t really make sense to me. ‘Cause I’ve been under the impression it’s 54, ’cause, you know, 54 to 57 is what we’ve heard over the last 10, 15 years since I’ve been in the business. The average age of a loan officer today is 44 to 46 years old according to ChatGPT and Google. Which begs me to ask the question, how did we drop 10 to 15 years in the average age? And I think, and I haven’t done all the research on this, is that it’s something that happened post-COVID. I think a lot of people that were in their mid-50s probably got out of that kind of refi boom with historic all-time low on the interest rates said, “You know what? I’m not going back through another cycle. “‘Cause it’s been a tough- Yeah. 2 or 3 years in the business. So, you know, if you’re 57, 58, 60, you’re like, “You know, I’m gonna slow it down,” maybe tuned it down, maybe jumped into another career. Yeah, I would say probably after the boom of COVID and when the rates started to go up, you probably did see a lot of people that have had some good runs and, you know, didn’t want to try to grind through another cycle of it being down. And, and I honestly, I think there has been an influx of younger people that have gotten into it since I’ve started. You know, I- I think when you go to these conventions or you even just walk around our office. Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of younger people that have gone into this post-COVID. Whether it’s a job change or, uh, you know, out of college, they wanted to try to do something a little bit different. You know, I- I do think that there are a lot more younger people thatIt seems to be a younger crowd since I’ve gotten into it, as I age drastically. Well, you talk about you aging. I sat here and I was like, “44 to 46. “I’m the old guy now- Yeah, I know. in the mortgage business. Like, what’s happening here? I’m gonna have to sh- You’re the average age of a loan officer. Yeah, this is, uh, not good. This is not good. Um, but, you know, let’s talk about that, because I talk about Craig Snell a lot when I’m out either recruiting or talking to people and they’re like, “Hey, I want to get into the mortgage business. “And I always finish with, “You’re the exception to the rule. “Right? And I don’t need to make your head any bigger. You understand that you are the exception. But, you’re the exceptionIn my opinion, you’re the exception because you were willing to go out, do the work, put the hours in. Like you said, fancy cars, nice clothes. Whatever it is that somebody looks at and says, “Oh my God, I want to be that guy. “Let’s talk about, like, what you had to do to even get to that point, and even the timeframe. Like, your timeframe of getting into this business, the barrier of entry, to, you know, the point of 12 months in the business, you’re on pace to do $100 million and you have n- you’ve never looked back. That is like the 1%, right? So we talked about the 80/20 rule. You’re like the 1%. So I always like to talk about that when I’m recruiting people or if somebody wants to do- you know, jump into the business. But I also tell them, like, “That’s the 1%,” right? So if you take everybody else that’s in the business and you kind of average out what they’re doing, you can make a good living here, but you’re not gonna come in here and, and, and make a million, two million, three million dollars where everybody thinks they kind of expect it. Yeah. I mean, I think the opportunity is there that you can make a good living. You can make 5, 6, 700,000 once you really get established. But I would say, I mean- Hm. I wasn’t the only one that started when we started, you know? Yeah. There was other new, brand new loan officers, or even loan officers that were at other companies, that started within the firstright away, within the first 6 months, a year. So, you know, right place, right time definitely helps. I think I was given a lot of opportunity, but also, it’s what you do with the opportunities that you’re given. And also, I think, like, what was a huge benefit to me, that a lot of the loan officers across the board, whether they’re here or anywhere, don’t really have to do is everything. Yeah. We had to do everything. You’re not a super tech guy at all. So it w- Chill, chill. And we did- I’m the average age of a loan officer. But this is, this is kind of why it helped in my opinion, because it made me learn all sides of it, not just going and selling a mortgage or, you know, working on somebody’s preapproval. There was learning how to disclose loans, learning about tolerances, learning about non-QM, uh, learning about QM fails, learning aboutthe process, processing, how, how to get a loan through processing. Well, what do you have to do to make it go smoother, because we didn’t have, you know, unlimited help like we kinda have now where things just kinda move. And you can be an okay loan officer and kinda push things along, and the team’s gonna clean it up for you. We didn’t have that. So, you know, to give a good, you know, process for, for a client that came in, I wanted to figure out how do we make that happen and how do we, how do we make this go a lot smoother, because maybe the first couple don’t go that smooth. Well, okay, you learn from that and you get better and you change your process. You ask for documents that maybe you didn’t ask for. You ask for questions. You have to always be learning and, in my opinion, like, from start to finish, when you first start to talk to a client till when they close, youThat process and that time and those conversations you have with that client are very important for how that process goes with them, what you ask for, the questions you ask for, making sure that you preapprove them correctly so that it’s not a bad process when it goes in. And now, “Oh, hey, sorry, I know you said you could do 5% down, but, you know, I was way wrong on your income and now it’s 20% and you need a co-signer. “Like, you don’t wanna have to have those conversations, and that’s really kinda what can hurt you as you’re trying to get into this business, is not knowing, I, I think, everything. And it’s impossible to kno- know everything, but as you get at-bats and you go through it, how you can improve your process on the next one is what really helps you. And the more at-bats that you can get, the better. I mean, I think if you’re getting into this, the best way to do it is to kinda work underneath somebody that is a mega-producer so that you get more at-bats. And I think that helped me with helping you work on some of your stuff, disclosing all your loans in the beginning, um, working on my own stuff start to finish. Like, there was no LOA, there was no disclosing team, you know, there was really one processor that we had and she was overwhelmed. So, I had to try to make her job as easy as possible if my files were gonna go through clean. So it made me a better loan officer because I had to go learn those things, and I spent a lot of time, uh, trying to figure out what I didn’t know, which is hard to do because you don’t always know the questions to ask if you’ve never gotten burned by something, right? But if you’re around somebody, you know, and everybody that gets into this business, everybody wants to make all the money right away, right? You see it. We ta- see it with our loan officers, like, “Hey, you could go on a team or you can go under somebody. “And I think they’re starting to realize it now- Yeah. you know, with some of the structure changes that we’re doing, which I think is gonna be huge for some of our loan officers in 2026. But they all wanna make all the money up front, and they’re really never gonna get the support or, like, the at-bats that they need, and then somebody to actually help train them throughout that process as well. I mean, if you take our top c- handful of guys out of there, the average loan officer probably closes 20 to 24 units a year. Wow. So, call it 24 units. That’s 2 a month. In my opinion, we’ve made it very easy, we talked about this the other day, just via text, it’s like I feel like we’ve gotten soft over the last couple years because we’ve implemented so many strategic processes in our system on how we do business- Yeah. that we give the, give that away to all the loan officers here. I sat with a, uh, not a loan officer yesterday, a, a processor, and, you know, she was asking, “How can I get better? What can I do to get myself better? “And I said, “Well, you d- you’re doing a great job processing loans, but if you wanna start doing stuff, do you understand income? Can you, can you break down self-employed income? Can you, can you read an appraisal and start picking apart the appraisal before it goes into underwriting? Those are things that you can just do on the side. No one has to see it. You have questions on it, you know, bring that to somebody who understands how to calculate self-employed income. “If she does all those things, she’s gonna be, A, a rockstar processor, or maybe she’d be able to grow into, like, an LOA position. Or even more importantly, like, when you first started, I remember thinking to myself, “I have no idea what I got here. “I’ve had many people come in, work under my team, work for me, and, you know, when I was a branch manager, other loan officers coming in from other companies, whatever it may be. What we used to do, we’ve kinda gotten away from it, now that I’m sitting here thinking this, is I feel like everybody should, if you’re a loan officer, if that’s what you wanna do when you come in, you should process the first 10 or 20 loans if y- on your own to really understand ’cause that’s how I learned. That’s how you learned. If you look at some of your top producers, they all know and respect the process of processing, and they don’t get involved in the files too often, and they’re, they’re not giving them a headache. Um, I think that would, that would be a, a big, big change, and I was thinking about this before we jumped on here. Think of all, and this, this is obviously gonna go out to Mortgage Daddy, so hopefully not anybody in the company watches this, but look at some of the best employees knowledge-wise, right? They’re not my pets, right? Like, they’re not my favorites or whatever I get in trouble for. They’ve all processed loans, LOA, loan officer, you know, wiring, you know, accounting, book. They can wear all the hats. They understand what the jobs are and they have respect for the other groups. I feel like when somebody comes in as a loan officer, they close 3 or 4 loans a month for, like, 3 or 4 months and they completely forget how hard it is after they just take that application. Lo- loan officers have a terrible, across the board, I mean, I, I think al- almost all of them have a terrible mindset of, like, it’s like everything’s always, like, a rush. And it’s like rush, rush, rush. Okay, gotta get it over and it’s like if you woulda just spent 5 minutes, and maybe it takes you 30 when you first start. Take a whole day. Take, take a whole day ’cause you got nothing else to do when you first start, right? Take a whole day figuring it out, making sure everything is 100% the best that you can do it, whether that’s just labeling documents, coming up with a system of how you label documents so that you can go back in and find things easily. It’s easily set up for your processor to process the loan. You put the right documents in. You clear out the ones that you don’t want. You make the whole flow easier for them. You make sure that you have your 1003 filled out correctly. There is probably a lot of loan officers out there that don’t know the importance of that and why it matters, and they just have somebody on the back end cleaning it up. Well, it’s gonna cause problems. And until you get burned because of it, you’re not gonna fix that. And you will get burned. 100%. Or your closing will get delayed or whatever it is because they’re trying to get a, a VOE and you put in, like, some bullshit phone number, you know, for something and, you know, they, they’re not answering and everybody’s busy. And, you know, the, once things get busy, and we, we went through it in a very busy time, so it’s like- Yeah. there wasn’t a lot of room for error because- Death by fire. there wasn’t a lot of time, right? Now there’s a little bit more time so they can get it fixed and processes get better and contacts are easier to find. But just the little things and, and taking the time of making sure you have a call with your client, you set it up correctly, make sure you 100% know what that client wants to do, how they wanna set it up. You pass that message along to your processing team. You make sure you have the correct documents. You know what you need to ask for. You know how to calculate income. You know the guidelines on the loan that you’re going with and making sure you have the correct documents to match that and read your findings. If you, as a loan officer, do not know how to do that or don’t feel 100% comfortable, you’re not a great loan officer. No. You’re, you’re a, you’re an account rep or something, in my opinion. At best. Like, you sh- You’re taking a quick 1003. Yeah, you should get an application and find somebody to go work on the file for you until you learn. And make sure you pay them well. Yes. And just, if you’re just a, somebody thatBut if you’re just starting off, everybody always focuses on, “How do I get business? How do I get business? “if you only focus on that and you don’t focus on how, what you do when you get that business and making sure that you have a process and you know how to do every piece of that process, whether you have to process or not, or you have to disclose the loan or not, it’s important that you know how to do it in case you need to jump in there or what you’re looking at. Do you even know how to l- you know, I, I was talking to Dustin yesterday because obviously we’re taking a few of the loan officers that I think kinda fit into this bucket, which- Yeah. and I think it, you’re, bullshitting yourself if you don’t think you have loan officers at your company that maybe don’t know as much as you think that they know. And, dude, Dustin’s very knowledgeable, and he has the time and he wants to do this, so he’s taking some of these newer loan officers or ones that have been around that are these type of loan officers that we’re describing, and he’s gonna help them, uh, you know, with the process. And, and I told him yesterday, I said, “Hey, man, you wanna, you wanna see something really funny? Just pull up one of their loan estimates and just start asking questions as if you are that engineer client- Yeah. that you don’t wanna work with, right? And just start asking every question that you’ve ever gotten from a client before about a loan estimate. You ask me, I’m gonna be able to answer every single one and I’m probably not even gonna need to look at the paper. “Yeah. Because I got that good because of the timing going through it. Also, the reps, the, we used to sit there, actually, um, Mike Souza and I were talking ’cause I’ve done multiple loans for Mike Souza and, uh, you know, he’s buying another house, and he’s like, “Dude, this is so easy. Like, it’s all electronic. “I’m like, “I know, man. Remember when I used to have you come in my office and we used to have to sign it or I’d have to send it to you in a DocuSign when we first started? But that got me reps of going over a loan estimate-” So now you can do it. ” over and over and over again. “Like, before the client, most of the time before the client even finishes their sentence, I know what they’re asking me. Yeah. And I know how to answer that without having to look at it. So I can have a call while I’m driving home or I can have a call to go over something without having to have that call with, “Oh, you know what, that’s a good question, I gotta go ask somebody. “‘Cause that’s how you get better, by the reps. I’m glad you brought that up. So, you know, this episode is to kinda educate somebody who’s getting into the business or maybe somebody who’s been in the business 0 to 2 years and they’re just not, you know, they’re not finding their stride. I think that’s wh- what you’re talking about is key. If you’re doing everything over the phone, everything via email, everything electronic, get back to basics. Go old school-Have your client, meet with them, have them come in, take the application, pull the credit, go over everything, review their documents in person, ask them all those questions, take great notes so the processor knows what’s going on. And then also have them come in to go over disclosures when they go under contract. We had to do all that, right? Right? I remember you just sitting here and you’re like, “Vern, another client’s here. “And like every 30 minutes- Right there. every day there was- Pew, pew, pew, pew. a new client sitting there. Either a preapproval or they’re coming in for docs, right? I’d preapprove them, they’d leave, they’d go under contract, 3 weeks later they’d come back, go over docs. And then it got to the point where you, you, you started learning so much I’m like, “Hey, Craig, can you take this disclosure appointment? “You’re like, “Uh. “I remember like the first couple you’re like, “No. “And then you’d come in, “Hey, what’s this one mean? “But that’s how you get better to the point now- If you never go over it, I mean, wh- how are you gonna know? It makes me wonder how many loan officers we have right now that are closing 24 to 50 loans. If we stuck them with a consumer in their office, could they go over page by page of that entire disclosure package? I might have just found my next, uh, my next competition here. Yeah. And I think, like, technology is good, but also technology makes people lazy. Yeah. And you get away from, you know, you’re not even taking an online. You’re, you’re just g- sending somebody an online application, which is fine. I do it all the time now because of the speed of things that we need to work at, uh, and, and the amount of time that I have to, to do it. But it makes my life a lot easier when I take it in person because I’m going to rememberLike I’m not good with names. I don’t know- You’ll build a relationship. I’ve never been good with names. But you, if I look at a 1003 and I see what they do for work, I, I’m gonna remember who they are. Yeah. Pearl always gives meShe’s like, “Oh, who’s this person? “I’m like, “I don’t know. “Whoever they were. Then I’ll look in the 1003, I’m like, “Oh, I know who this is-” Yeah. because of what they do for work or whatever. Because that’s part of my initial call with them, you know, is going over what they do for work so that I know. Because I’m not just asking because I want to talk to them, I’m asking it for a reason. What do they do for work? How do they get paid? That’s important because now I know what I need to get from them because I want to make that process of getting pre-approved as easy as possible, not just, “Hey, I’m gonna send you an application,” and then you send over paperwork and then it’s not the right paperwork. Yeah. And then I need more paperwork and now that whole process goes kind of a little clunky. All right. So take yourself out of this. Okay. I know it’s going to be hard for you to do that because you’ve been in the business now a long time. You’re a dinosaur, according to the average age in, in America. I’m still way below that. You’re, you’re creeping up though. You’re like 10, 12 years off. Um, what would be one piece of advice that you’d give to somebody who’s just, you know, thinking about getting into the mortgage business? What would be the one piece of advice? And I know what mine would be. Um, but what would be the one piece of advice you’d give to somebody? And I do send people into your office. I’m like, “Hey, go talk to Craig. “I would sayI think there’s a couple of pieces. I don’t know if I can just answer one. Give us, give us a few. Um, you know, I, I think one piece that was very important to me, which I think really helped me grow my business, was you can’t be afraid to reinvest in your business. Yeah. You know, and, and not look at all of that income that you’re making as, like, that’s your take home. Like, I invest a lot of what I made back into my business, whether, you know, marketing events or whatever, like that’s how you grow your business. And I know it’s tough when you first get started and you’re not making a lot of money, but that’s where working under somebody kind of helps because that person will fund those things for you. Yeah. Um, but I really believe if you’re going to get started in this business, find somebody that you get along with and use that person at, like, as a mentor. But you have to, you have to show them that you want to work hard. I always look back to everything being a competition. I want to be the best at this. If you’re going to get into this business,All those things we’ve talked about so far, you need to figure out how you can get to be the best at those things. It’s going to take time, but if you’re under somebody who’s a mega producer or does pretty well, they have a lot that they could probably have you help with. And maybe you’re not going to make a lot of money on it, but you’re gonna get at bats. Yeah. You’re gonna go,Going to be a loan officer in the school isYeah. I mean, you learn about regulations and things like that, but you don’t knowYou don’t learn about how to talk to clients. You don’t learn about how to really go over income or guidelines or anything like that. So you need to then go to school when you finish by working under somebody that can teach you those things. And it may be a combination of people. You know, your loan officer that’s, uh, your, your leader may not be the best at all that stuff anymore because they don’t have to be, right? They have help. But that means their LOA, you need to help, right? You need toto help that LOA so that that LOA wants to spend time with you? Yeah. HowYou know, how do you show tho- that team that you’re there and you’re not just looking out for yourself and just come into their office when you have a question about your own thing? What can you do to helpAnd, and then you’re gonna get gifted stuff- Yeah. by doing that. You know what I mean? I think- And you have to be ready not to make a lot of money in the beginning. Yeah, I mean, I think the hard work andmakes the most sense. But for me, and you just finished it up, is ma- not making a lot of money in the beginning. Like, I was just thinking about this. You started. You came over. You were a full-time firefighter. Wanted to get into the mortgage business. You did that hard, right? You were straight crazy with th- the mortgage business. You were still putting in all the shifts at the fire department, not missing anything. Uh, when I s- jumped into the business, I had to take a 50-hour-a-week job just to pay all my bills because my biggest piece of advice with anybody who’s thinking about becoming a loan officer is to make sure you either have decent reserves before you make that transition. Maybe you live at home with your parents. Maybe you have a significant other who can carry the weight and take that burden off you for that 6 to 12 months while you get into the business. If you get into this business and 45, 60 days into it, you’re walking into Craig’s office or my office or wherever you’re working and you’re like, “I need to make a paycheck in the next 2 weeks,” this isn’t gonna be the business for you, right? I mean, you’re looking at a minimum of 45 to 60-day ramp up. If you take 5 applications in your first 2 weeks, most of those should be purchase transactions, es- especially if you’re new. They’re not gonna f- the, the buyers aren’t gonna find a house. They, theyUh, I mean, I’ve had buyers not find a house for 3 years, right? 2 years. So maybe theyMaybe you get lucky. Maybe somebody finds a house in the first 45 days. You’re not getting paid on that deal for 60 to 90 days afterwards. So that’s the biggest, you know, crutch that I see from loan officers being able to come in and immediately kind of see success, because they don’t have that fina- financial burden at home. Uh, you know, I always like to talk about, you know, a l- a lot of different loan officers. I’m not even gonna bring it up anymore ’cause, you know, the, the ones that come in and they don’t have that burden on their shoulder, you’re working full time. I remember sitting there talking to you and I’m like, “Dude, like, what’s it gonna take you to quit the fire department? “We’re not gonna go down that, that road here, but you had income coming in, so when you came to work at Milestone and become a loan officer, you didn’t have to worry about your financial situation at home, right? You had your wife working. You were still working. You were bringing in the same money. You were just devoting, I’d say 40 hours, but it was more like 60 hours, to the mortgage business of just becoming a student of the game. Like, th- anybody watching this, make sure you have some financial background to come back in, some backing there. And I know Craig touched upon this, but educate yourself on your products and the knowledge of the product and what you’re actually getting out to the consumer. I think that’s the biggest issue is first-time home buyers or that savvy investor who’s been doing this for 30 years can see bullshit, right, all over it, right? So, you know, don’t have to make it up. I used to tell people all the time, I told you, the best thing you can do when somebody asks you a question you don’t know the answer, “Hey, that’s a great question. Let me find the answer for you and I’ll get back to you. “I, I think it’sthere are people coming in and I, I see it happen all the time and I think it wasI’m so f- saying I’m so far past this at this point, but, like, it was a while ago, you know? 2020, 2019, 2020, 2021 seems like a lifetime- 10 years ago. ago at this point. But that was before a lot of these people were there, and I don’t think they really ever saw that hard, that non-stop work. Like, and it’s notAnd by that, I don’t mean just in the office, just in the office. Like, people think that they come to the office from 9:00 to 5:00 and they’re like, “Oh, I worked. “Well, what did you really do- Yeah. when you were here? You know, what were you doing to get better? And also, what did you do after you got out of work? Because most of the money thatand r- the relationships and the business that I got was not made from 9:00 to 5:00. 9:00 to 5:00 is when you’re working-on the stuff that you have. Afterwards, the events, the, you know, networking events, the open houses, all that stuff, the constant 9:00 meetings, you know, on a Saturday with real estates teams. Like, all of those things is where your money is actually made. Yep. The 9:00 to 5:00 is working through the files that you have, and it takes you a while to do that. In the beginning, it takes youLike, me looking at a file might take me 10 minutes now. Well, when I first started, it mighta took me all day legitimately, because I had questions and you had to go to account reps. You have to go back and forth. But you’re not as busy, and then as you grow, you have to get better. So if you don’t get better, you can never grow enough, because if it takes you a day to look at a file or if it takes you a day to, you know, make a decision on something, whateverAnd a day’s a little excessive, but if it takes you that long, and as you grow and you get busier, if you can’t cut that time down, yeah, you’re gonna hit a wall. Yeah. And you’re never gonna be able to do more than one or 2 transactionsNow that I’m thinking about this, so financial. Like, f- you have to have some finance in the background to get you through this. Sugar mama. Educate yourself. You definitely need a sugar mama, and I’m glad you brought that up, because I think one of the things I was talking to, uh, a gentleman from, uh, um, the LO podcast, right, TLOP, and, you know, one of the things we were just talking about before we, we did our podcast with him is you have this at home. And if you look at a lot of the loan officers in successful operations, people that we have at Milestone, they have a strong backing at home, right? Like, you have an amazing wife. She just went to Florida for 4 days and I was getting text messages from Craig like, “I could never do this every single day. “”Like, I’m just non-stop. I’m falling asleep at 9:30 at night. I’m up at 5:30 or 3:00. “I don’t even think I made it to 9:30 one of the nights. But I think if you’re getting into this business, you-If you’re in your mid to late 20s to 60 years old, you need to eitherThis is my opinion. I’m gonna probably get a lot of flak for this. You either need to be single or you need to have a spouse, significant other at home that understands- Oh, 100%. that you’re working 60 to 80 hours a week. You might not come home until 12. You might smell like vodka sodas or Bud Lights, whatever your thing- your thing is. And they have to have that understanding. And it’s gonna be some ups and downs- We-when you first start, but they have to have that. We had people that didn’t work out because of that. Like their significant other wanted them home at 5 o’clock and didn’t- Yeah. understand why they couldn’t be home at 5, or, “You always have something to do,” blah, blah, blah. If I would have had that with Emily, like, in the beginning and she wasn’t supportive of me going to everything I needed to go to or going to open houses, like she was bought in just as much as I was bought in- Yeah. with it. So there was never a fight about going to work or working more or going to an event. Like that, there was never a fight about that. And if you’re fighting about that- It’s hard. the entire time, well now h- how can you really enjoy it or how can you focus on it or how can you put your effort in or how much longer are you gonna keep fighting that? And eventually you’re gonna be like, “Oh no, I can’t go to this. “Yeah. “I can’t go to that. “Like there wasn’t one thing that I didn’t, that I got invited to, whether it was from you or from somebody else, that I did not go to. Now not so much , but- Yeah, I mean, we can pick and choose after you do it. you know, you gotta pick and choose a little bit and you have other people that can fill in as you grow. But in the beginning, I always looked at it as, “If I’m not there, somebody else is gonna be there. “Yeah. And then somebody else is gonna get that business. And that’s, like, how I looked at it for years. And I didn’t, and I didn’t even care if it was you. I wanted to be there over you- Oh, yeah. so I could get that business. Oh, I remember. And you know what? It was the happiest time of my life because I was able to step back and not have to be there- Yeah. because you were taking that space and, and, and filling that role. But I’m telling you, like having a strong backing at home is, is definitely that, and you know, if you’re single and you wanna get into the mortgage business, the sky’s the limit for you, right? I mean, if you don’t have to worry about thatI mean, you had kids. I hadI did not have kids when I got into the mortgage business, but, um, you know, having that just strong home base is, is, it’s key. It’s crucial. I mean, it’s, uhI mean, for the people out there, after you put in, maybe if you’re super successful, 5, 10, 15, 20 years for me, I’m finally able to, you knowThanks to Craig and some of the people, you know, that are in place here at Milestone, it’s nice to go away for a weekend now. I mean, I spent 10 or 12 years and, you know, the old school real estate agents out there knew, like if they needed a preapproval on a weekend, just call Vern. Even if they didn’t work with me, if they needed a preapproval to get an offer accepted ’cause, you know, final and best were due on Sunday at 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock, I was gonna get that preapproval out because they saw me at every open house that I could possibly go to. Like if you’re gonna get into this business, just know, you might be able to go out on Saturday night, but your Saturday and Sundays between like 9:30 in the morning at, to 3 o’clock in the afternoon are gone for the next like 2 to 3 years. I mean, can you take a handful of those off every, every year? Yeah, absolutely you can take a couple long weekends, but- Yeah. you’ve gotta be out there. I- I think just, uh, like that point of just like we talked about, if you work hard and you grind harder than everybody else in your office, people are gonna notice that and they’re gonna give you more opportunities. But it’s the same thing with the realtors and the business partners. Like if you’re out there at everything and grinding and you’re working hard, they’re gonna appreciate that because they’re trying to do the same thing as you really, and they’re gonna like feel that and they’re gonna wanna help you. I got a lot of help in the beginning from realtors because of that exact thing. “Oh, you’re always at this, you’re always at this, you’re always at these open houses and then you’re always available. “Well, everybody says they’re always available, but they’re not. Yeah. And that’s the difference. Or you know, how quick can you get something turned around or you know, “Oh well, uh,” you know, “yeah, send me this. “”Well, I’m at this right now,” or “I’m doing this. “There was none of that in the beginning, at all. There wasI had a laptop with me 24/7 to make sure that I could answer somebody and it would eat at me if I had to like give, wait 30 minutes because I was driving home to give somebody an answer on something because that was like that, that mindset that we just had. Like it wasn’t- It’s the competitive piece. Yeah, it wasn’tI, I wanted to, you know, if an agent was asking about something or was putting me in contact with somebody, it was like, “How can I jump on this as fast as possible? “Because again, I don’t want anybody else to get it. So you have to likeand if you don’t have that mindset, I’m not saying you can’t do this and make some money, but you’re never gonna be number one. No. No, I mean, listen, you are an absolute exception to the rule. I’m proud to, uh, to call you a friend and a partner. But I need to stop telling people about Craig Snell when I’m out there recruiting these guys because they come in, and we got a couple in here now, they’ve been in here for a couple of months and they’re like, “This is really hard. “I’m like, “I didn’t tell you it was easy. “I was like, “I told you, he’s the 1%. “I’m like, I don’t think that the general public, even if they’re not in the mortgage business, not in the real estate business, even our business partners, our realtors, our insurance companies, our title companies, they’re grinding 24/7, 365. We don’t getIn this business, you can’t take time off of, like just, “Hey, I’m gonna work 9:00 to 5:00. “Right? We’ve seen people in our industry that were successful and then they changed their, their scheme, right? They’re, “I’m only gonna work 9:00 to 5:00. “And I remember when I got into the business, there was a monster around here. He was an absolute killer, did great work, and he changed up his entire thing. He’s go- “I’m gonna take weekends off and I’m only answering my phone 9:00 to 5:00. “Craig, when I tell you that was the happiest day of my entire life because at that point, I knew that I g- all I had to do is answer my phone from 5:00 to midnight and I had to work weekends and I would get all his business partners and referrals and clients. So anybody out there, you know, thinking about jumping into the mortgage business, you wanna talk to Craig about it, talk to myself, um, you know, even reach out to anybody, you know, in the mortgage business in this space, it’s a great career. Um, it, it’s benefited me, it’s benefited Craig in, in ways that we could never, never, um, you know, even comprehend. You know, give back to the community and it allows us to do so many other things, um, and, and just- it’s a positive impact. We get to help people with the biggest financial decision of their entire lives. So, um, you know, as much as I hate this business and now I’m the grandfather of the business and I got gray hairs and my daughter’s telling me that I should dye my beard and that’s just weird. I think we should do it on the episode. I don’t think we’re gonna do that. I think we should definitely do that on the episode. Maybe if I can wash it out after. I’m gonna change the color and make it orange. Oh, here we go. Here we go. I think, uh, if you guys have any questions, you know, feel free to leave some comments below. Any questions, uh, feedback would be really, really appreciated. Thanks, guys.